Chapter 29
SONYA
“Itold you to be careful, Dylan.” The coldness in her voice is just as frightening as the dead look in her eyes before she turned away from me.
A man stands across the room, shoulders folded in as though he’s trying to make himself smaller. He rammed his car into Matvei and me. On purpose. On Genevieve’s orders. I know this because he told me on the drive here. Wherever ‘here’ is, some place hours from Chicago.
I’m restrained in a bed in a room that is outrageously opulent for the circumstances.
“I did my best,” he whines. He’s thin and wiry, pale and dark-haired, with a scraggly mustache. He’s wearing a faded t-shirt and jeans. A ragged baseball cap is being twisted between his hands. “It wouldn’t have done any good if he were still conscious. And there was ice—”
Matvei.
Matvei was unconscious, slumped and unmoving over the airbag, when the men in black balaclavas and black tactical gear pulled me from the car. I can still see the blood trickling from his head and down the white nylon, turning the black leather and shards of broken glass shiny and wet.
I tried to wake him, calling for help once the car came to a rest from its deadly spin.
It took me a few moments to realize we weren’t dead.
Well, I knew I wasn’t dead. The car had been struck on the left, just behind the driver’s seat.
I’d tried desperately to reach Matvei, to check to see if he was still alive.
Then the men had come and wrenched the door open, cutting me out of my seat. I’d screamed for Matvei, but he hadn’t responded. He was still unconscious—that was the last glimpse I had of him before the masked men shoved me into the windowless van and shut the doors.
“I told you not to worry if he was unconscious,” Genevieve hisses. “I told you we would take care of that.”
The man backs up a step and shifts from foot to foot, turning and crumpling the hat in fingers that move faster and faster. “I was afraid he would shoot me if he was awake. I know he’s been looking for me since I set fire to his warehouse. You don’t fuck with that guy, Ms. Mancini.”
“You will address me as Boss, Mr. Jones, because I am now the don of the Mancini family.” Genevieve’s voice is as cold as ice, and from the way the man’s face drains of color, I’m glad I can’t see her expression.
“Boss,” the man mutters as he takes another step back, edging toward the door only to come up against one of the big goons who dragged me out of the car and into this room. He looks more like a statue than a human, as do the four others in the room, and it’s very clear who’s in charge now.
The gun comes up, her thumb pushing off the safety. “Who are you more afraid of?”
Stuttering is the only answer she gets—the guy is too afraid to get any words out.
“Tell me!” I jump at Genevieve’s screech.
“You! I’m sorry, Boss. I did my best.” The man is babbling, his words rushing and tripping over each other like his feet would be if he could run.
But he’s trapped like a rat. “Matvei Volkov would have recognized me. He would have recognized my car and known I was the one who set fire to his warehouse and shot him. I should have been—”
I muffle a scream with a hand clapped to my mouth as the sound of a gunshot blasts through the room. Two more follow before there’s a heavy thump that makes my stomach heave. The guy’s body hits the floor, leaving a growing crimson stain on the carpet.
“Yuck, what a mess.” Genevieve wrinkles her nose as she glances at me. “So annoying. Don’t worry—we’ll give you another room to stay in while you’re here so you don’t have to stare at the blood stain. I don’t want the babies to be in an unclean environment.”
I only nod because I’m not sure what the hell is going on.
“You know I have to assert my dominance now that I’m the don,” Genevieve continues. “Nobody wanted me, you know. None of the made men or other dons. But after I orchestrated a few mutinies and a few ‘accidents,’ suddenly everyone decided it was in their best interest.”
The woman’s smile is glowing with happiness, and I’m wondering how I missed the glint of insanity in her eyes.
Who else has she killed besides this guy to make her point? Suddenly, a sickening thought comes to mind.
“Did you—” I swallow, willing my voice to sound normal instead of betraying my accusation. “Did you poison your father?”
“Of course I did.” She says it with a shrug, as if it should be clear. “He was getting too old and making bad decisions. He didn’t see my vision for the family. He also didn’t like my plan for the twins.”
“Your plan for the twins?” I echo faintly.
“Of course.” Again, she says it like I should know what she’s talking about, and I’m horribly afraid as I am beginning to see when I notice a man in scrubs pressing himself against the wall, his eyes darting around the room nervously.
“Gross.”
We all look toward the new voice as Samson wanders into the room, making a face at the body on the floor and the pool of blood soaking into the carpet around it. “Can someone get this shit out of here? I don’t want to have to look at it.”
He wanders across the room, calm, cool, and all smiles in his chinos and polo as though he just came in from playing golf. He kisses Genevieve affectionately, and she cuddles into him as he winds his arm around her waist.
“Everything okay with the twins?” he asks the man in scrubs. He pays no attention to me, the one who’s carrying them.
“Yes,” the doctor answers hastily. “Yes, everything’s just fine.”
“You’re not dead.” I say it flatly, hating the man in front of me more than ever.
“Of course I’m not dead. Wishful thinking, huh?” Samson winks at me and grins brightly, and I wish I could claw his eyes out.
I watch the two of them, the same “happy” couple I saw on the day of their wedding, and I realize it’s not happiness, at least, not in the sense of most newly-married couples. They’ve each found their own monster.
“You never wanted to divorce him.” I don’t know why I say it—I already know the answer.
“No, but you believed me, didn’t you?” She looks at Samson, beaming. “I told you she would believe me. I’m such a good actress.”
Samson smiles at her with what I swear is pride, then looks at me. “She’s right. I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt. I thought you were too smart to fall for it, but you and your bleeding heart believed every sob story Genny sold you. I guess I gave you too much credit.”
“Or you took advantage of my good heart and good will, you asshole,” I say now that I’ve finally find my voice.
Samson only laughs. “Yeah, well, look where that good heart and good will got you.” His grin can only be described as malicious, the manipulative bastard.
“And look what it’s gotten me. I’m close to destroying Matvei, I have his woman, his men are defecting to me in droves, and soon I’ll have his children, too. ”
His grin grows even more cruel and terrifyingly bright, like he’s possessed by some kind of demon. “I’m going to take every fucking thing my brother has, and I’m going to make him watch before I kill him.”
Genny giggles and claps with glee, but I’m still stuck on something Samson said.
“You’re going to what?” I finally manage, sounding half-strangled because all the air has left my lungs as if I’ve been punched in the gut.
“We’re going to raise your twins.” Genny glows with happiness as though I’m a willing participant in the plan.
“You’ll stay here until the babies are born.
We’ll treat you like the mother goddess you are, of course, then once they’re born, we’ll take them.
You’re going to be our surrogate, Sonya!
Oh, I’m so happy!” She claps with glee again, then flings her arms around Samson.
“Genny can’t have kids, so I promised her yours.” He says it like he’s expecting congratulations for the upcoming bundles of joy.
“You promised her my—” I croak, but that’s all I can manage, my hand going to my bump as though that will somehow protect my little ones within from this horrible fate.
Anger the likes of which I’ve never felt rises in me. I would go after the two like a jackal in a second, clawing and screaming, if I wasn’t tied up.
“You fucking bastard! Let me out of here, or I swear I’ll kill you. These are my children, not yours!”
Samson just laughs. “Hey, hey, you’ve just been in a car accident.
Ease up, will you? We want those kids to be healthy when they’re born.
They will be healthy, right?” He turns again to the doctor, still pressed against the wall, his gaze flicking between the bloody body print on the floor and the psychotic couple.
“Y-yes,” he quietly replies.
“Good. Keep it that way.” Samson takes a very thick envelope out of his jacket pocket and holds it out. The doctor takes the money with shaking hands.
When he comes close to gather his ultrasound machine and various implements, I whisper desperately, “Please, help me. Tell someone I’m here. They’re going to take my children.”
The man won’t even make eye contact with me. He pushes the cart with his stuff out the door, the squeaky wheel the only sound until he shuts the door behind him with a final click that seems to seal my fate.
“Samson, please. You can’t do this. You can’t keep me here. You know Matvei will come after—”
He’s in my face before I can say another word, his expression a mask of rage. He snarls, “Do not say his name in this house. Do you understand me? You can spend your entire pregnancy in a dark room, all alone, tied to a bed. Is that what you want?”
I shake my head vehemently and shut my mouth.
“Good.”
As he straightens and steps back from the bed, Samson rolls his neck and shrugs his shoulders as though casting off the outward signs of whatever demon has possessed him. I’ve never believed in the supernatural, but his behavior is chilling, and I’m not entirely sure anymore.
“Dad tried to tell me the same thing.” Genevieve stares at the swell of my stomach beneath my sweater as she speaks.
“That’s why he had to go. I knew he was going to try to stop me once he became aware of our plan, and I couldn’t have that.
He was talking about all-out war, but I think he was just too afraid of—” her eyes flick to her husband and back to me “—you-know-who.”
“So you’re saying you had to kill your father?” I ask, my voice flat.
“Yep.” She shrugs. “I’ll have to kill you, too, of course. But you don’t have to worry about that for now. Just focus on growing our perfect twins, okay?”
She smiles sweetly, then places a baby monitor beside me.
“If you need anything, just call. We’ll have someone checking on you, allowing you to get up and use the bathroom and all that.
But don’t try anything. We don’t want to have to make your stay unpleasant, but we will if you don’t do your part. ”
Samson gives me a look that promises she’s not exaggerating and I shiver. Then they leave, and I’m alone in a lavishly decorated room, in a mansion somewhere outside of Chicago, pregnant, and tied to a bed. I’m never going to get out of here. Not alive, anyway.
I knew Samson was a terrible person, but I was not aware of the insanity behind the narcissism and anger. I see now that Samson and Genevieve are a match made not in heaven, but in hell.
And I’ve never been so terrified.